


I looked into the abyss and I saw my own face

by Tabata



Category: Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-10
Updated: 2016-02-10
Packaged: 2018-05-19 13:51:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5969440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian's self-analysis and a comparison with his own crazy father bring him to a surprisingly positive conclusion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I looked into the abyss and I saw my own face

**Author's Note:**

> And here I am again, writing about Sebastian and about his fascinating inner struggle. I can't really think about him as a completely bad person, mostly because characters that are only good or only bad are really boring, and he most certainly is not. (written for the third week of [maridichallenge](http://maridichallenge.livejournal.com/)'s COW-T, the prompt was: abyss)

If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.

That's what people always say, but it's not half as bad as it sounds. If you are staring at the abyss, it means you and the abyss are still two completely different things. You can look at it and see the horrors it contains, but you can always take a step back, put some distance between yourself and the bottomless pit of abominations that threatens to drag you down in itself.

The problem is when the abyss is inside you. You can't stare at it anymore, you can only feel it as he acts through you without asking permission. You become the abyss and there's no amount of steps you can take back to get away from it. You live with it and it never leaves you alone.

Sebastian doesn't remember a day in his life when he wasn't burdened with this knowledge.  
He was born this way, but without the blessing of ignorance. He knows he wasn't supposed to be this creature. He knows that, even briefly, he's been a Nephilim. He knows he could have been one. He knows it's the demon blood in him that makes him what it is. He knows all the possibilities, but he doesn't have a choice. This is torture, his personal abyss.

His father never thought about details like these. He was a practical man, not even a man of science, despite all his experiments. He didn't want to discover. He didn't want to learn. He only wanted to obtain, gain, bend the laws of nature itself to his own purposes, without stopping to think at the consequences of what he was doing. Feelings had no place in the world he saw, a world full of corrupted Shadowhunters and Downworlders that had to be cleansed of everything in order to start over. What importance could have had the pain of his firstborn if it could serve to get him what he wanted?

Valentine had stared into the abyss of his own mind, and he had drowned in it, taken down by his own obsession, lost before he could even realize he was falling. And yet, he too could have taken that step back, put some space between himself and the things he would have done next. He could have mended the past by not destroying the future. His own abyss would have stopped staring at him, if Valentine had been strong enough to look away.

Sebastian can only stare at himself in a mirror. The abyss will always look back, no matter where he looks. But just as there's some amount of evil in a good person, there also must be some amount of good in an evil one, and he can call to that, to that drop of angelic blood that still runs in his vein. He's not human, he's not Nephilim, he's not demon, but most of all he's not his father.

He can't look away, but he can close his eyes and he can run, run, run.


End file.
